Appreciating Emotions
“Are feelings formed by emotions?” – “Yes”
Appreciating Emotions
“Are feelings formed by emotions?” – “Yes”
We can learn a lot to correct and change our way of thinking, but what about emotions? Can we change those also? Fortunately, we can.
As soon as we get into emotions and emotional responses (feelings), we may not be able to handle the simple logistics, strategies and self-help techniques used to correct negative thoughts or a possible victim mentality, especially if those emotions are deep-seated like phobias, anxiety, depression, love or hate.
Emotions have the often-disturbing habit of sneaking up on you. Emotions always come first; the feeling part, where you recognise what is happening, comes a bit later. Those feelings get your thinking going, and as we know, negative thinking is so much easier than keeping a positive mindset.
Surprisingly enough, even with emotions, one can still work with the concepts discussed already.
Prevention and being proactive are, again, effective strategies. What emotions affect you and come to visit you occasionally to scare you? Ensure that you have appropriate positive responses.
It will help if you have worked out how to respond to your troubling emotions at a time when you are not overcome by those emotions. You will need to program your subconscious mind accordingly by using affirmations and anchors.
Don’t attempt to “control” your emotions; you will most likely bottle them up, and they will come up again with increased strength. However, it is crucial to recognise and name your emotion and determine if it is a valuable response. If not, you can learn to change the emotion.
Mini-Mind-Workout
· Become aware of your emotions and accept them for what they are.
· What specific emotion are you feeling, and can you name it?
· What does that emotion mean to you?
· Can you identify what triggered that emotion?
· Let go of fighting or controlling that emotion.
· Instead, change it to a more suitable emotion.
Also, ask yourself a curious question: what do you feel or think about your specific emotion, or to put it differently, “What is your attitude about your unwanted emotion?” “If your emotion is anxiety, could you change your attitude about anxiety?”
Does it have to be your enemy? Is there something it can teach you? Is there something you still need to discover about yourself?
Can you see anxiety as a friend with impaired communication skills?
If that friend had good communication skills, it would tell you how to resolve that issue. Without it, you have to attempt to resolve the anxiety issue yourself. However, the fact reminds us even an unwanted emotion, such as anxiety, tries to tell you something. There is something you may have overlooked.
Knowing about emotions and their functions can help discover the missing message or meaning behind the emotion. Changing an attitude is sometimes effective in healing emotional distress.
Humour is also a great healer, “Laughter is the best medicine”. Could anxiety be reframed as funny or amusing? Can you see the funny side of it and think, “What the heck is this for? I don’t want this emotion,” and being amused that your mind is dealing you a bad card? Could that make a difference?
To fear anxiety is certainly not a helpful attitude; it creates a vicious circle where fear is more toxic and debilitating than anxiety. It is within your control to change your perspective and your attitude away from fear towards acceptance and healing.
Anxiety is not the only emotion we need to know about; other emotions can also be troublesome or lead to anxiety.
…. to be continued
Excerpt from “Chaos in Brainland” - amazon.com.au/dp/0645652334/
Interesting. I've always lumped the words feelings and emotions together, not realising they are separate states. It's helpful to think of them this way.